GoAnimate Unveils New Political Characters and Backgrounds

GoAnimate, which offers free web applications that enable marketers to create their own animated videos, has released of a new collection of political characters and backgrounds focused on the United States Presidential election.

The new collection includes five new backgrounds: The Debate Stage, The Talk Show, The Situation Room, Network News, and The Pub. The new collection also includes more than a dozen new characters, including: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, as well as a variety of TV hosts and journalists.

Now, creating animation can be pretty hard and often requires expensive software, but video creation sites like GoAnimate and Xtranormal Movie Maker let marketers create animated videos with just a text storyline. In minutes, marketers can make two bears discuss fiction-writing, or create their own cooking show parody.

I was given the opportunity to check out the new GoAnimate collection in advance of GoAnimate’s announcement. Over the weekend, I created a handful of custom animations of my favorite (and least favorite) political characters without drawing or downloading anything.

To see what social media managers, search engine optimizers, and search engine marketers can do with GoAnimate’s new collection, I took “ More Jobs for Americans: Stand with President Obama to Continue the Fight for Jobs” and did to it what Woody Allen did in 1966 to “International Secret Police: Key of Keys.” He took the Japanese action film and re-dubbed it, changing the plot to make “What’s Up, Tiger Lily” revolve around a secret egg salad recipe.

But it was more difficult, more time-consuming, and more expensive to create this video back in 2008 – as well as a task only the tech-savvy would take on. Today, without drawing, downloading a program, or learning a new skill, any marketer can produce custom animated videos in just a few hours, by choosing a few options and simply typing or talking into a mic. These animated videos can then be distributed by exporting them to YouTube, sharing them on Facebook or Twitter, posting them to Tumblr or embedding them in a blog or website.

Building on an already robust library of characters and backgrounds, GoAnimate’s new political collection provides an opportunity for marketers to join the election conversation in a rich media way. These features are available just in time for the CNN Republican primary debate on October 18, 2011. As the election season continues, GoAnimate plans to add new relevant characters and backgrounds.

In an email, Gary Lipkowitz, GoAnimate’s VP of Corporate Development, told me, “Elections can get heated. Many of us have had that experience where we want to throw rocks at our TV watching a debate, or have found ourselves yelling in agreement during a speech. Then we’re furiously typing on Facebook or Twitter to share our support or lack thereof. But it’s just text. The politicians are coming at us through rich media. So we should be able to react and respond in a rich media way, so we brought GoAnimate to the election.”

About the author

Greg Jarboe is president of SEO-PR, which provides search engine optimization, public relations, video marketing, and social media marketing services. He's the author of "YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day," a faculty member at Rutgers University and Market Motive, as well as a frequent speaker at SES conferences.

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